Movies

On the Waterfront

chad — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:12:41 -0400

Everybody and their mother has already written more than I could hope to say about this movie. So I will keep it short. But one like this begs the question: a movie so frequently watched, so hyped, so dissected, so thoroughly turned inside out over the years by lovers of movies; why do we keep coming back to these classics? Why do we love them? Why do they resonate across the decades?

The answer here is simple: Brando. The script is not too shabby, though the ultimate struggle is resolved in a fairly dated way. It is for similar reasons that Budd Schulberg is not too widely read today: that kind of overwrought, left-leaning, “I’m in tune with the common man” preening was never going to stand the test of time. The shot of the dock workers lined up, near the end, doing for Brando’s Terry Malloy through numbers what they didn’t dare do individually, the power of the people coming face to face with the overwhelmed wheelings and dealings of the “the man” reminded me a lot of the “solidarity and brotherhood” shots in an old Eisenstein film. (Think Battleship Potemkin.) It is powerful for the same reasons, but also horribly dated.

Bunny Lake is Missing

chad — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:19:32 -0500

I really need to read a biography about Otto Preminger. (This one looks pretty good; remember the link to my wish list on your lower right hand side?) Thus far, I’ve only seen three of his movies - Anatomy of a Murder, Advise and Consent and now this one. I own the first, will be buying the second, and will definitely be grabbing this one. A special edition of it would be friggin’ awesome, as this version has no special features, but the movie itself is good enough to make it worth it.

I mention my interest in Preminger because each of those three movies are a) stellar, and b) totally different genres. Courtroom drama-cum-detective investigation, inside-the-beltway political thriller and psychological horror, if I have to give each a label. And yet each also has a commonality: slowly but surely, the viewer discovers that people are not at all who they say they are. Given the formal constraints of the time (which he also did a great job of working around), every movie I’ve seen of his still unfolds in an extremely subversive way, giving the basic satisfaction of a good story, good narrative pacing, and a traditional cast of characters, but then upsetting the viewer’s expectations time and time again.

71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance

chad — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:29:31 -0500

This is not the place to start with Haneke. (For that, I would suggest Caché, which for all its indie cachet, is a very accessible crystallization of the same themes the director has repeatedly explored in all of his films.) However – though it is formally experimental – it is also emotionally destructive, and the purest, most troubling example I have seen yet of the point Haneke time and time again seems to be trying to make.

A Mighty Heart

chad — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:14:40 -0500

As the years (is it really almost 7 now?) after September 11th have stumbled by in something of a fog, and the militancy, hatred and violence of our world have shown no signs of abating, I have often been struck by a curious notion. It seems that – among Americans and Westerners in general – the farther away one was from the events of that day, the more strident the calls for some form of violent retribution, no matter how tenuous the links between the acts pursued in the name of “revenge” and the real causes of trauma on that day. Among those of us I know – I’m including myself and my friends – who were actually present in New York on that day, there was a lot of hurt, a lot of anger and a lot of emotional devastation; but, interestingly, almost everyone I know who saw those events in person has retained a sense that complexity, dialogue and increased information are the most fundamental weapons in the war on terror. Not MOABs and Daisy Cutters.

The River

chad — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:54:00 -0500

What a contradiction: there is both so much and so little here. Scorsese loves it. It’s co-written (adapted from Rumer Godden’s book) and directed by Jean Renoir – whose Grand Illusion and Boudu I own and absolutely love. And it was his first film in Technicolor, shot entirely on location in India, with all its bright, bursting, colorful possibilities. I expected to love it.

But the story and the acting here are both awful. There’s unfortunately really no other word for it. Most synopses seem to suggest that it’s a story about a young woman’s crush on a much older, American World War II veteran – both her awakening to the idea of love, and her early adolescent frustrations and disappointments with it. More accurately, it’s about that young woman’s coming of age, as she attempts to jump headfirst into love, life, and artistic immortality (and their opposites – heartbreak, death and the impassive, destructive transience of existence, symbolized by the ever-flowing Ganges).

Sicko

chad — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:37:11 -0500

There are approximately 50 million Americans with no form of health insurance. And yet, of the 250 million or so that do, many die from illnesses for which treatment is available but which they cannot afford. Insurance companies - being corporations - exist primarily to make profit; that is their essence, regardless of whatever other purpose they serve. Thus, every time they deny a claim, that means business is better. Not surprisingly, these companies oftentimes refuse payment for treatment on questionable grounds, in order to increase their profits, thus leaving some sick people unwell and untreated (sometimes fatally so). Citizens in Canada, England, France and - yes - even Cuba (plus many other countries) have universal access to health care, and the cost of their treatment is largely covered (or reimbursed) by the government. This "socialized" medicine is often not nearly as inefficient, slow or tyrannically run as the American Medical Association would have you believe. Many of these countries' citizens in fact prefer their health care systems to what they know of the United States' system.

That paragraph took me less than two minutes to reread. Let's say it takes you three minutes. Well, then I have just saved you exactly two hours. Maybe you can use it to write your Congressman demanding reform of the American health care system.

King Solomon's Mines

chad — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 01:03:39 -0500

This is a true slab of Hollywood cheese, in epic proportions. Highly enjoyable, as long as you know what you’re getting yourself into. Hackneyed, clichéd, surprisingly aimless with little sense of real dramatic build-up – all of which adds up to a fairly enjoyable ball of corn.

First, the characters: cartoonish, clichéd send-ups of the usual adventure story tropes. The rugged, George Hamilton-orange, disillusioned Quatermain, who of course still has a heart of gold. The naïve, proud, fair damsel-in-a-foreign-land, Mrs. Curtis (think A Passage to India’s Anna Quested, with none of the moral confusion). The simple, often silly, but still good hearted native assistant. The Captain Kurtz crazy-man encountered deep within the Heart of Darkness.

Jour de Fête

chad — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 03:57:30 -0500

O Criterion, where art thou? Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, Mon Oncle, and Playtime have all been given the treatment, but this little gem is left out in the cold. And it has such an interesting history, I can already envision the two-disc package: first disc is the original color version of the film (done in "Thomson-color," a process that was done in before the actual film was shown), disc two the black and white (with hand-drawn colorized touches by Tati himself). Both would have commentary from a biographer, film history expert, or scholar of slapstick physical comedy, documentaries about Tati’s early career and impact, and silent film shorts as well as modern day examples to draw parallels and place this kind of comedic brilliance in historical perspective.

I don’t know, I’d buy it. Instead, we have some jankety Australian version that won’t even play in my DVD player. Or, my downloaded copy of the black and white version that didn’t even have subtitles.

Good Night and Good Luck

chad — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 03:03:47 -0500

First things first. Bravery. Relevance. Independence. These are watchwords for the best kind of journalism, and they are qualities sorely lacking in the majority of television, radio and print media. They were, however, very much on display in Edward Murrow’s stand against Senator Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950’s, and Good Night and Good Luck conveys that achievement clearly, even inspiringly.

Released in a time when fear is again used as a political instrument, when the news media is "embedded" within the very halls of power, when secrecy, attacks on civil liberties and black-and-white, us-versus-them mentality have again become de rigeur for a moralizing, ambitious administration, this movie was clearly intended more as a warning call about the current state of affairs than as a simple historical tale. Indeed, the framing excerpts from Murrow’s 1958 speech speak directly to the current (mis)use and irrelevance of current television news. Though McCarthy is censured by the Senate, he serves for another 2 ½ years, while Murrow is given a five-program parting package and sidelined. The intersection of advertisers, political pressures and pure cowardice are not easily overcome. In short, the message is that bravery, relevance and independence might shine a brief light in between ad breaks, but the hands that pull the curtain back down at the end of the hour are much too strong.

Brazil

chad — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 22:03:23 -0500